ahhhhhh I am in Santiago, Chile!! Hay muy independecia y no responsibiliades y este amo! Basically I have been thinking in Spanglish all day so hopefully that is a good sign that eventually I will learn some real Spanish.
I´m definitely not going to make my goal of only 20 minutes online but in an effort to keep it as close to that as possible, brief summary of the trip so far:
Mon AM at SeaTac, an hour and a half before my flight, there was a huge combined line of UNited and Air Canada and they didn´t have my reservation at first and then I had to get searched at security but I made it to the gate 20 minutes before my flight left. Yeahhh. Then 4 hours to Torontop, 9 hours in the airport there, like 10 hours on another plane (mostly sleeping), land in Santiago at 10ish this morning. For some reason I wanted to take the most difficult transportation to my hotel, so I took the cheapo bus to the bus station in the center of town and then metro three stops... while wearing my huge backpack which seemed so well packed when I left but is now enormous. Big sweaty lost gringa, it was fun. Took me some wandering to find the hotel, but up 3 flights of stairs I had my own room and a shower! Took some time to chill and headed out to explore.
Santiago is big, I think bigger than Seattle, and kind of a mix of colonial and modern architecture so it feels almost European. Pretty easy to get around, except for the language barrier it sort of just felt like walking around by myslef at home. I managed to order lunch with the help of a nice waiter and walked down the main street ( my hotel is right downtown) to this big hill... the names of things are escaping me right now. Anyway it was really pretty and terraced and kind of castle-y, and at the top I could see over the haze to the mountains which are HUGE and gorgeous!!! Of course. Oh soem students from the University talked to me and I was a little skeptical when they started trying to tell me about things and maybe invited me to a party? (somethign about pisco sours) but then it turned out they were trying to raise money b/c school is so expensive. I got guilted into giving them some cash but that brought up some interesting questions for me. Anyway then I walked over to the Plaza Armadas? Where all the distances are measured from, its the exact center of town. Gorgeous buildings around it, lots of people watching, etc. Cathedral exploring, watched some dance performance with a really bad brass band, walked to another plaza, bought ice cream, now I´m on the way back to the hotel.
My voice is getting better (combo of not being able to speak and not being able to speak Spanish is unfortunate) as is my cold, but I´m definitely going to bed early tonight and I´ll just see how tomorrow goes. Miss/love everyone, but I´m so happy to be here and in general everything is great so far.
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People are going to be asking you for money constantly during this trip, at least in cities; so best to get used to saying No when asked, to preserve your hard-earned dollars!
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